Healing

Yes, I'm back and very much alive again. Like an injured animal I secluded myself, withdrawing into the wilderness, licking my wounds ...

Last month, when it was coming close on Christmas, I felt I just couldn't cope anymore. I abandoned work, family and friends, Christmas and New Year's Eve and escaped into the mountains, seeking quietness, seeking salvation, seeking clarity.

And I found it there – in the snow, in the silent depth of the forests, in the damp pillowy moss, lying like green carpets in the sun wherever the snow didn't reach. I found it in the beauty of the countless icicles and in the soft sound of the frozen mountain brooks, flowing on and on underneath their bizarre icy covers.
It was a different world from the summer mountains altogether, quiet and almost motionless. The snow deadened every noise with the exception of the gnashing sound of my steps and my breath. Being outside all day and in all weather, experiencing nature and realizing how everything is coherent and interdependent made me understand how this is also true for my own life. I found myself looking at all that snow and ice and water, understanding how they are all connected, how they are all one despite being different from one another, each with it's own beauty and own purpose and yet none better than or superior to each other, and I found myself looking at the bare trees, thinking of how they will start to bud again soon, nurtured by soil that was once leaves ... reflecting on nature's diversity and constant change I became aware of how this is true for everything in this world, how I am also part of this nature, subject to change, bound to it's laws and the universal principle of life: everything is subject to impermanence. And that's that. The universe won't make an exception just because it's me out there.

Trying to internalize this simple truth, raising a deeper and deeper awareness, I suddenly found I felt all peaceful and blithe. At first I didn't dare trust this new found peace of mind but the fears and worries did not return. Instead I felt so energetic again, so soulful, grateful and brimful of life.

I needed to move, I felt like dancing up the mountains but the amount of snow stopped me and finally I went ... snowshoeing! What a revelation! You get everywhere, places you wouldn't reach in the deep snow, not on foot and certainly not on ski. I managed to reach summits I had been to last summer ... and what a different sight now in the snow. I was warned beforehand not to leave certain areas to avoid disturbing the animals in their dormant, but still – everything in front of me seemed like a vast whiteness, completely quiet and devoid of human life. All I found were animal tracks and odd marks left by tiny blobs of snow, skidding down the slopes. The single snow crystals were the biggest I had ever seen, some almost the size of a fingernail, and they twinkled and sparkled like huge diamonds in the sun. Everything was so breathtakingly beautiful and I found myself filled with wonder again and again.

What can I say. I came home full of tranquility and contentment. Confidently looking forward to everything this new year will bring, all the change to the better or the worse ... I'll try to carry it with more wisdom than I managed in the past ... finally living up to my old motto:

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of it's own unfolding." (John O'Donohue)